WHEN ROB HENNELLY of Mayo joined up with the Dublin club Raheny, one man took it upon himself to make the introductions.
Once a sufficient crowd had gathered he made a little speech to their new recruit from Breaffy. He told him he was very welcome to fetch up in that charming enclave of north Dublin, and he would plug into their vibe in no time and get to know all around him.
“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing for years,” the welcoming committee continued, “Keep banging all your kickouts straight to Brian Fenton.”
Ice-breaker achieved.
It seems remarkable that Hennelly is still there plugging away for Mayo, recalled by Kevin McStay for recent pre-season fixtures, just when it appeared last year McStay had settled on Colm Reape as his goalkeeper, backed up by Rory Byrne.
When it comes to Mayo and Dublin, we look to Hennelly, along with Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor as having long histories.
Hennelly is still hanging around as well. His first time encountering Dublin ended up in a Diarmuid Connolly hat-trick of goals. How long ago was that? Well, put it this way; a 2-0 win away from home to Sunderland had Liverpool owner John W Henry giving tacit approval that Kenny Dalglish might be made permanent in his role as manager.
2011 feels like a world away.
A year later, Mayo made the world take them seriously by knocking All Ireland champions Dublin out at the semi-final stage.
By then, Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor had joined the party. O’Connor would end the day with 0-7 to his name, three 45s nailed and three frees. He showed no respect to the Dubs and in truth, it has been the most fractious relationship.
The winter retirements of Jason Doherty and Kevin McLoughlin remove two more long serving Mayo men. O’Shea and O’Connor are the last two standing from that 2012 team that took down Dublin.
It wasn’t as if Dublin couldn’t see it coming. Over 10,000 people came into Castlebar at the end of that March to watch Mayo turn on the style and wallop Dublin, 0-20 to 0-8.
O’Connor wasn’t playing that day. But he was preparing. Even before that famous semi-final he was practising his frees at the local pitch in Ballintubber with earphones on. What was piping through them? The noise of Hill 16 singing, ‘Come on you boys in blue’.
Even from when he was a teenager, he has been chasing Dublin. It would seem a logical conclusion to draw that his clubmate and long-time county manager James Horan, who introduced him to county football, had moulded him in this way.
They’ve managed to beat them twice in championship football. They haven’t done it when it has ultimately mattered on the final day.
Nobody has exhausted himself in the cause or taken as much abuse as O’Connor in pursuit of downing the Dubs.
He ships abuse because of what happened in the 2016 All-Ireland final. At the time, Dublin hadn’t scored but they still led the game because of the two early Mayo own goals.
Ciaran Kilkenny was in possession and O’Connor was blocking his path to goal. James McCarthy ran into O’Connor. It was the type of classic basketball screen move that Dublin used frequently in lots of matches at that time.
Did O’Connor exaggerate the impact? Probably. Was it a third-man tackle as defined at the time for a black card?
Entirely.
The upshot was that McCarthy was replaced for the rest of the match. It wouldn’t raise any objections now that the sanction has changed to a ten-minute penalty. But prior to the replay, some Dublin players made a point of not shaking O’Connor’s hand.
As critical as Hennelly’s retake of the ‘45’ that brought their 2021 semi-final to extra-time was, his appearances have been in and out, juggled through the panel with seasons off and critically losing out in the race for the jersey against David Clarke.
O’Shea? It’s a complicated one. It’s difficult to think of many players that have been subject to the ridicule he has suffered. We say suffered, but it doesn’t seem to take a fidge out of him all the same.
There is a school of thought out there that he occasionally not done himself favours. Insider knowledge of how the media operates would carry an objection to that theory.
Say for example, the 2021 All-Ireland final. Having finally beaten Dublin, Mayo had Tyrone in the final.
In mid-July, O’Shea had done some media rounds in a commercial link up with a mobile phone repair company. Some interviews appeared in the press at that time.
The week prior to the All-Ireland final on 11 September however, the interviews, along with accompanying photos of O’Shea in full David Hasselhoff red shorts running out of the waves, were published again, or else outlets had sat on the utterly harmless quotes, not referencing any games or opponents, but instead a mishap where O’Shea’s mobile phone was damaged.
There was no story. The pictures became the story. Who was this boy, prancing around on a beach the week of an All-Ireland final?
In the final, Ronan McNamee had the better of the battle, but crucially for Tyrone, made a very visible block on O’Shea when there was a half-chance of a goal.
In the deliberations afterwards, O’Shea was – not for the first time – unnecessarily scapegoated.
For many Mayo followers, that was the day the music died.
Or at least it felt that way. Cillian O’Connor was injured. Ryan O’Donoghue’s penalty didn’t even require Niall Morgan to make a save. And O’Shea wasn’t the leader he needed to be.
Support came from a slightly unexpected source the following week. Occasionally, Kevin McStay tended towards the scorpy when assessing Mayo defeats.
In his Irish Times column, he offered an alternative narrative to the one being spun.
‘O’Shea lost his fifth final on Saturday, 19 December 2020. He didn’t score. Dublin won with no undue fuss.
‘On Monday, 18 January 2021 a friend of mine had a meeting with a sports consultant in the Sism gym in Castlebar. It is run by a member of the Mayo backroom team.
‘It was a wet damp morning and as he went into the office, my friend spotted O’Shea doing a weights session. He had started back the week before. People don’t see that side of it. He has been doing this for a decade. Up to recently, Aidan O’Shea hadn’t missed a game for Mayo for 10 years.’
Since that piece was published, two seasons have come and gone for Mayo.
James Horan finished up. Kevin McStay came in.
O’Shea feared for his future. Hennelly thought it was all gone. O’Connor might have felt his race was run.
And yet, still they remain. Still facing the Dubs in one of the great Gaelic football rivalries on a Saturday night in Castlebar.
Some going.